I'll follow you till you kiss me
by OrangeRabbit
Summary: Welcome, welcome! This here's a story where drama, suspense, and romance come together in a rather dramatic, suspenseful, and romantic story. We have the dramatic heroine, the suspenseful hero, and the romance! The perfect chick-fic.


OrangeRabbit here, calling in from who knows where. I say 'Ullo' and listen to your response. 

This here's a little fic, based on one of my spontaneous ideas. I have not read any fics dealing with stalker-ism, so for me it's original.

The story-

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Ribbon, as her name was, walked miserably to her rundown home in Port Charles. _Oh the life of an old woman's maid._ She thought regretfully. She had the chance to run off with that milky sailor.

A milky sailor who was quite milky indeed. With his tied back hair, and his almost straight teeth. She sighed, remembering the way those teeth were like a flash of lightning against his sweetly tanned skin.

She always had a thing for sailors.

She was not a live-in maid, oh good heavens, no. Living with an old woman who's most common complaint was the lack of elderly gentlemen on which to practice her rusty charm? If she had had any sort of charm at all. Lord help her, but Ms. IngleburtHamleton, third cousin to the in-exile Duke of Chattursby (a small island to which she'd never even seen, nor had he.)- was most definitely not the ideal companion a young, attractive maid like Ribbon would want.

Ribbon snorted-and was answered with a neighborly snort from a nearby cart-horse.

"_Good luck_"

She felt the horse said. Nodding at the horse she gingerly shook her skirts (like she had seen many a noble woman do), stuck up her nose, and proceeded to enter the house.

It was a Maid-House. With two stories and chipping periwinkle blue paint along the entranceway walls. At one point it had been a blossoming place with blossoming young maids. At one time it held twenty two girls, and three elders. It was a place where parents could house their daughters without fear of their corruption.

Over the years it had been divided into two separate abodes. The Maid-House part now housed twelve young ladies, and three (though there was only two) elders. The other- was used by the city guard. A place for guards of patrol duty to stop and rest, drink a cuppa perhaps.

Of course this arrangement was considered lovely by both the young maids and the soldiers. The two elderly women felt safe in their beds, and slipped blissfully into sleep, completely unawares as to the goings-on of their charges.

Ribbon was too good to be a soldier's wife. Or rather, she thought she was. A soldier's wife was the kind of woman who was happy being bored. Happy with the thought of her husband never coming come due to a sword in stomach dilemma.

She supposed if she wanted an early widowship a soldier's wife would be the top choice. The top choice as far as good choices went. Thieves wives weren't so deliciously sought after among most women.

Ribbon, now in her bedroom, afforded herself a hefty yawn.

The work that day had been tough. Ms. IngleburtHamleton had ordered (specially from France) the newest edition of Culotte de Sublimite's corset/bodice line. And Ribbon had been called from her mid-morning tea to help the woman out of her clothes and into the frilly, lavender, lace covered corset. And then she helped the woman back into her petticoats, and dress, and then out of them again as the corset was not tied tight enough, and then thelist had gone on and on.

And Ribbon's mind was on romance, again.

She was doing something so ridiculous, so unheard of among the women of her class, that her fellow Agna and Pearlie's Fashionable Maid-House residents had looked upon her in awe and respect and slight disdain.

She was saving herself.

When she was a little girl, her mother had said to her- 'When you meet the man you're to marry, you give him your all. Whether you like him or not!'

And so, being the type to always follow mother's orders, she refused to let her curiousity kill her cat, and decided to wait to know the passions of the flesh until she found her husband. Or true love, since she had also decided that her mother's advice was a little bit dated.

But oh-how the soldiers and maids alike laughed.

It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. She had made her choice, and the choice was to be chaste. So she stuck up her nose, and huffed. Her cheeks burned and her hands itched to slap skin, but she held herself tight like a true lady would.

And that was the difference between her and them.

But like always, no matter what subject, her mind turned to love. Oh. If only...

If only she was like her best friend. Jim. Jim was a maid for a wealthy gentleman, with pretty blonde hair and pretty sky blue eyes, and a pretty smile. Everything about her was pretty. Not even a flaw on her pretty skin.

Why, even when she laughed the lines seemed to fear showing themselves.

She had men drooling over her, and she could just flip her hair and laugh. Ohh, how Ribbon hated her perfection. She was like the porcelain dolls her mistress crooned over.

With everyone wanting a poke.

Jim's voice was like bells, too. Those pretty light silver bells that sounded light as feathers. The only thing not perfect was her name. A boy's name, it was.

But no one but Ribbon took notice of her name. So she shut her mouth and denied herself the privilege of pushing Jim into that cart horse just outside the front door.

She sighed again.

Life was so much harder when your best friend's candle was brighter than yours. Ribbon felt that she would have been happier about the situation if she had money or a man to make her friend jealous.

A good looking, charming, sexy man who made Jim so jealous she'd throw her perfect self off a cliff or something equally dramatic.

Then Ribbon would take the stage, and keep it till she's stripped of her beauty.

The thing that bothered her the most though, was that Jim was innocent. Most women have the devil inside, with schemes, tricks and manipulations spinning through their minds.

Jim though, she knew the attention she got, and appreciated it.

That's all. No plots to make anyone jealous, no conniving schemes to earn proposals, and no tricks to hurt anyone. She was pure, and just plain happy about everything.

Even her monthly bleeds were rejoiced.

_I am jealous. _Ribbon admitted to herself, while she flopped onto her unmade bed. _But at th' least I've got some spirit in me. Jim wouldn't leave Charlie unless we was all infected with sick._

_A good man never waits for th' woman who won't scramble down a tree to fall into his arms._

"And Gran was right. Would I, assuming I'm a man, wait for the woman that insisted on me climbing up? I mean, it wouldn't even be a proper romance if the kinds of things you argued 'bout were things like who should climb the tree."

"...Talking to yoursel' again?"

She turned around and glared at the vision before her. Jim, wearing her pink rose patterned dress, with her hair in a tidy braid, was laughing.

Ribbon snorted. Like a lady, of course.

"Of course not"

"Then who?"

Jim had her there. But then...Ribbon's inner woman of confidence and goddess-like-ness smiled.

"The ghost of my gran! "

Jim's eyes widened and the tiny, pretty corners of her mouth that were curved so sweetly sputtered out.

"Wha..?"

For all that Ribbon hated her friend, she was quick to love her simple minded ways. Everyone was superstitious these days, about one thing, or many.

Jim's little thing was ghosts.

Apparently after Jim's mother had died she had a dream about her mother telling her to change her pantaloons on Sunday. Ever since then Jim was afraid.

It was a cruel thing of Ribbon, but she had seen her opportunity window and had taken it. Her day had been trying...

"Oh yes, she died two years ago and visits me often, didn't you know?"

Jim paled, her pretty nose twitching.

"H..how often?"

"Oh almost every day!"

"Oh."

"Oh? Come now, Jim, it's exciting isn't it?"

"Y..yes. very."

"And I met the milkiest sailor today, ohhh Jim, you would have loved him!"

She and Jim did have a thing or two in common. They both liked sailors. And Ribbon hadn't really met any. Not that she was really lying to her friend. Well, of course she was lying. But not a lie that should be considered a lie. More like, a piece of dough. Dough to soften their friendship, and pad Ribbon's bruised pride.

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She awoke in the morning, the bright, sunny, cloudless morning- and groaned. Mornings were for the weak. The people who couldn't stand to do nothing.

She heard humming. Oh boy, she heard humming. Who on earth hums in the morning?

"Oh for the God's sake, stop!"

"S'orry!"

Ribbon blinked. The voice was unfamiliar. It squeaked. She sat up very quickly, her hand flying to the candlestick at her bedside.

The voice belonged to a small girl, about Ribbon's age, dressed in clothes much too big for her. She had black-green hair pulled up into a twist.

"What's wrong with you? Your hair is a horrible colour."

Mornings weren't Ribbons politest times. The girl laughed, reaching up and pulling the pins out of her hair and letting it fall to her shoulders.

It really was a greenish black. Parts of her roots showed a nut-brown, but the rest held varied shades of the black and green.

"I dyed it."

Ribbon grinned. How marvelous! Here was someone who might possibly think like her. Her hand left the candlestick and came up to run through her own hair.

"Would you help me colour mine?"

The girl laughed. It was a hearty laugh, and sounded more like a cowbell, than any other bell.

"Yes, if you wish. I might botch the job, but we'll be twins."

"I'm Ribbon." Ribbon climbed out of her small bed, and held out her hand.

"Muri, for me."

The girl, Muri, took the hand. They were going to be fast friends, they could tell.

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And fast it was. Muri had become the maid of a wealthy merchant, and...well..he took a liking to her. She often came home with things he had given her. A roll of expansive cloth, a pearl necklace, some dye to correctly fix her hair (though she didn't use it, since she found it more entertaining to go about with the green and black.), and a ivory comb.

Ribbon had become jealous, and took the greatest care not to show it.

Jealousy, she found, did not do well. Instead she became friends with her mistress. Giving in and telling her the gossip the old woman so desperately pleaded for. She never told names, but she did tell stories and secrets.

She told about the Merchant and the Maid, the Maid and the two Soldiers, the Maid and the Lieutenant of the Navy, the Maid and the Baker and the Baker's Son who was good friends with the Baker's Wife, and the Maid-House's housekeeper and the mysterious Gentleman.

She told juicy tales and never regretted a minute of it.

After a particularly juicy tale, the old woman did something for her no one had ever done. She made her live.

"Well my dear," She said regretfully. "I have yet to hear a personal story of your own."

Ribbon felt her stomach sink. She knew this was going to come up. What was she to do? Lie, and come up with some scandalous story?

"So, I asume it's either because it's worse than the others you tell me. Or-you've yet to have one, and are waiting for something marvelous. Something, shall I say, worth more than all the rest? A story that will last through the ages..."

Ms. IngleburtHamleton patted Ribbon's hand with her own withered one.

"You've caught me out Miss."

Ribbon adjusted her friend's skirts.

"I thought so. And call me Elise, please."

She curtsied and followed the elderly woman to her vanity table. There- she powdered her mistress's face and spritzed her with cologne.

"Mr. Wushworth is coming to tea, tell me girl, why not go on an adventure?"

Ribbon frowned. She always fancied herself a bit above the other girls when it came to the smarts. Her father had been, after all, a merchant. Oh sure, so had some of the other's though their father's had either died or lost their fortune before they could remember.

"Pardon, Mistress?"

Ribbon could remember the days of quality dresses and of warm feather beds. She had already known how to read and add basic numbers when they had lost it all.

"I'll have Ciri serve tea, you go out and come back with something good to tell me about."

"But Mistr-"

"No- I want you to go. I need a bedtime story, so Ciri will serve tea. You go, and do not come back until you have something."

Ribbon curtsied, turned and left. An adventure? How was she to go about that..steal a horse and ride it around the Soldier's barracks?

That did sound quite interesting...

But then, Ms. Elise wanted a romance story, didn't she? She could try and seduce a noble, or something equally mad.

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And so, it was because of this unable to figure out how to go about having an adventure, that Ribbon-our heroine in disguise, yes disguise, came to be where she was.

She was in a gambling house- dressed as a man.

With her hair tied in a sailor's knot, and her breasts bound- she was the perfect young man. Too young for facial hair, yet old enough to want a woman. Which is how she wound up having a large bosomed serving maid plop herself down in her lap.

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Yaay, wheee, all done with that first chapter. I have something about being in disguise...I swear. Comment, let me know what you think. Ja.


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